Please bear with me, I’ll try to keep this as succinct as I can. I come from very dysfunctional family. I’m one of 4 siblings. My late father died 12 years ago in the middle of a horribly fraught divorce from my mother. My mother made his life hell and was incredibly unkind towards him in his final days and as a result of this, relations between parent/children has never really recovered. Dad didn’t leave a will and naturally his estate and all assets went to her as they were still married - essentially this equated to a family home which was recently valued at 850k.
My mother made the decision 8 years ago to remarry, and as a way of protecting any inheritance we may receive, she agreed that she withdraw her name from the home and place it into our names on the proviso that she could at least reside in it until her death. We were happy to oblige with this. However, and for reasons I’m unaware, when the deeds were transferred, she did a 50/50 split between my older brother and younger sister. This was on the condition that my 25% would sit within my brother’s 50% stake, and both sisters’ shares would be combined within other sibling’s 50%. I hope this makes sense. I didn’t question/query this at the time as I was still estranged from my mother, and truth be told, my brother and I are close so I had no reason to not trust him to hand this over when the time would arise.
Cut to the present moment, and following a horrible fallout between my brother and mother in recent years, my brother decided he wished to permanently cut ties with her, and sell his 50% stake in the home. Bearing in mind his 50% stake included my 25% share. The sale went through last week (sibling bought him out), and the money hit his account. I then received word from my mother that I should approach him for what is essentially my inheritance, i.e. the 25% I was promised. Upon reaching out to him, he became angry and told me he would be keeping the full amount (a suspicion my mother has carried since their fallout and the reason why she is anxious that I get my inheritance). Naturally my mother is now losing her shit, as am I since that’s a significant sum of money which would have come in incredibly useful at this moment in time.
Legally, I really don’t know where I stand. I haven’t seen any of the paperwork that was drawn up from 8 years ago, and this isn’t forthcoming when I’ve requested it. I’m not even sure if the agreement mentioned that the 50% my mother was writing over to my brother included my 25% stake but I suspect my brother was shrewd enough to have written the entire 50% to himself.
My question is do I have a leg to stand on if I were to mount a legal challenge that he hand over my inheritance, or can he simply claim that the full 50% is his? The only people present and involved in the decision were him, my mother and sister. If my mother and sister were to support me in my claim, and confirm that he has reneged on the agreement, do I stand a chance? Has my inheritance been stolen or was it never recognised as mine?